Idle Thumbs 192: The New Blindfolded Fool

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You've delved too deep below the sea, to a time before human memory. A voice from your past won't stop echoing in your head, telling you lies, telling you about space, telling you things you've heard so many times before.

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I went to Day of the Devs back in November (partially in hopes of seeing the Idle Thumbs people there; no dice, but Jane was there! And that was really cool!) and got to see Subnautica first hand! It was pretty exciting at the time and was maybe the second coolest thing I saw there besides the Dolphin Test Cheating Simulator.

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For about a minute after the Braid joke I had the sinking feeling that this episode actually was the kind of This American Life style resplice/clip show of existing material that they were talking about at the start of the show. That would've been amazing.

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For about a minute after the Braid joke I had the sinking feeling that this episode actually was the kind of This American Life style resplice/clip show of existing material that they were talking about at the start of the show. That would've been amazing.

Curious how the Campo Santo office has Left 4 Dead mints laying around in 2015 for some reason.

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I know for certain that PS3s can and have been used by the US military. They made a supercomputer with them that was operating, at least as of 2010. I was sure that the comment that people had been using PS2s as supercomputers was just a complete misremembering and attributing PS3 chat to earlier in time. Then I did a little searching and found THIS:

In it, there was reporting on the speculation that a few thousand PS2s bought and imported into Iraq within 6 months after the US launch weren't, you know, game consoles, they were being scooped up for military purposes. The revealing quote?

Sony refused to say whether it was possible to link PS2s together to form a supercomputer, explaining that it did not comment on speculative stories.

Also what's wrong with the names of the games in the JackBox? JackBox makes me think of jack in the box, where when you use it something wacky pops out. Drawful conjures images of drawing, and fibbage is a game about lying. The fact that it's a portmanteau of fib and cribbage is probably incidental. I actually thought they were good names. Now I'm questioning myself, Jake!

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I've played a bit of The Outer Wilds and it is indeed very cool. I have to wonder though, with the IGF nomination, if the judges have access to an updated version with new/polished stuff. It's just too weird that it would get nominated on the strength of a 2-year old demo.

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Curious how the Campo Santo office has Left 4 Dead mints laying around in 2015 for some reason.

Ugh, I knew they were doing a reference to that bit and I thought it was eerily similar and the Left 4 Dead mints were weird but I guess I didn't fully connect it. But the part that really bothered me was when they started talking about Subnautica and I couldn't tell if it was a new game or something they talked about before on the podcast.

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Wow, those Star Citizen figures are horrifying. I would love to know how the studio reacted internally to them. Speaking personally, I'd be demotivated to the point of being unsure I wanted to work on the game any more. That is totally a personal reaction, I'm sure to some people this wouldn't affect their feelings about it at all but there must be some people who took the results badly and are trying to process it.

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Fibbage is a hilarious looking game that I would be absolutely terrible at. I'm the kind of person who would try to take it seriously and answer the questions while providing completely boring fake answers. It seems like there would be this weird balance between trying to be entertaining by coming up with goofy answers and trying to win by coming up with plausible things and I would fail at both.

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Also what's wrong with the names of the games in the JackBox? JackBox makes me think of jack in the box, where when you use it something wacky pops out. Drawful conjures images of drawing, and fibbage is a game about lying. The fact that it's a portmanteau of fib and cribbage is probably incidental. I actually thought they were good names. Now I'm questioning myself, Jake!

While I disagree about JackBox (I think Jellyvision is a way better name and JackBox is connotative of a lot of things that aren't awesome party games) I agree with you on fibbage and drawful. Didn't have any issue with either name and they are descriptive and memorable. I welcome any explanation Jake has for his dislike though word spud and lie swatter both seem like not great games or names.

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Wow, those Star Citizen figures are horrifying. I would love to know how the studio reacted internally to them. Speaking personally, I'd be demotivated to the point of being unsure I wanted to work on the game any more. That is totally a personal reaction, I'm sure to some people this wouldn't affect their feelings about it at all but there must be some people who took the results badly and are trying to process it.

Assuming it was the same survey I saw, it was a fan survey on reddit of about 3,000 people. The results were interesting, especially the table that cross-references the amount spent with annual income, but I'm not sure if they say more about the demographics of reddit or the demographics of Star Citizen backers, of which there are more than 700,000 at this point. I would love to see Cloud Imperium's internal data. Hopefully some of it is included in a GDC postmortem of this thing some day.

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While I disagree about JackBox (I think Jellyvision is a way better name and JackBox is connotative of a lot of things that aren't awesome party games) I agree with you on fibbage and drawful. Didn't have any issue with either name and they are descriptive and memorable. I welcome any explanation Jake has for his dislike though word spud and lie swatter both seem like not great games or names.

Oh Jellyvision is an awesome name. I was thinking only of the name of the game rather than the company.

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Assuming it was the same survey I saw, it was a fan survey on reddit of about 3,000 people. The results were interesting, especially the table that cross-references the amount spent with annual income, but I'm not sure if they say more about the demographics of reddit or the demographics of Star Citizen backers, of which there are more than 700,000 at this point. I would love to see Cloud Imperium's internal data. Hopefully some of it is included in a GDC postmortem of this thing some day.

Hrmm, right that's what I get for leaping to respond before considering the possibility of inaccurate surveying... I mean, being less official doesn't inherently devalue the survey but there are some creative answers given to the gender question. So this is not the most legit set of data.

It's still super weird though because having had the idea floated does make you really consider the idea that 'whale' style customers from free to play games can easily be people who can't afford it at all even though the traditional mental image is some working professional with money to burn.

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Chris's rant about The History Channel was appreciated. I've had uncomfortable conversations with my mother where it was eventually revealed that The History Channel is assumed to be the same as history in her mind (before it's questioned by someone else). Also my wife had to explain to a co-worker that just because The History Channel says that mermaids might be real, that does not mean that mermaids are real. I'm waiting for the day when my relatives show up with a bug-out bag slung over their shoulder explaining that The Weather Channel had a story about an apocalyptic meteor. When I was a kid, parents were obsessed with protecting their children from the lies on television. Now when the holidays come about and I see what they watch, I become concerned about how arbitrary the line between fiction and non-fiction has become from the authority which has the most presence in their lives. I can't get too frustrated about it. It just seems like negligence on the part of the people making the programming decisions. But I guess this is the eventuality of a form of capitalism where viewers are conflated with money. The whole pool of them will just throw a bunch of shit out there and see what is the most sticky and then do more of that. I think the Abrahamic faiths were likely developed in a similar way. It takes effort to question everything you are told.

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Speaking of games like Fibbage - have any of you guys tried Cardcast? It's basically a free version of Cards Against Humanity that runs on your Chromecast. It's similar to Fibbage in that everyone has their "hand" of cards on their phones via the iOS or Android app, and you can see the answers people play on the connected TV. It supports up to 10 people, and has quickly become the preferred way of playing CAH among my group of friends, since it's just so convenient, especially for the black cards that require multiple white cards.

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If it makes you feel any better, the Fibbage in the Jackbox pack is Fibbage XL, which has a bunch more questions. Giant Bomb streamed the original Fibbage a few times and I was already starting to see question repeats. Also, Drawful is the best game, especially if it's phones only so you're having to draw without any erase on that tiny screen.